Multilingual Education and India

Dear MLE friends, Safe the Children has become a strong advocate for MultiLingual Education (MLE) . SC UK just produced a good publication called “ Steps Towards Learning: A guide to overcoming language barriers in children's education ” The intro says: This guide summarises and explains what is known worldwide about the difficulties that children experience with unfamiliar school language. It offers evidence, arguments and practical steps to help stop language preventing children from learning. The guide focuses on developing countries, as this is where the majority of children who do not speak the language of school live. It offers strategies to help improve children’s chances of doing better in school, even when it appears very difficult to change the way language is currently used in education.

Dear MLE friends, The latest issue of Indian Folklife is focused on MLE. The guest editor, Dr Mahendra Mishra, writes in his editorial: This newsletter contains articles contributed by practitioners and policy makers on indigenous education and multilingual education across the globe. Tove Skutnabb Kangas is a well known advocate of Multilingual Education and Linguistic Human Rights. David A. Hough is a Liberatory Pedagogist and his focus is on Nepal Multilingual Education Project to promote tribal education through bottom up approach, empowering the indigenous community. Iina Nurmela’s paper is based on the experiential part of David’s work in Nepal . Susanne Perez’s article explores the indigenous education system of Peru . Dhir Jhingran has suggested appropriate educational strategies for implementation arrangements referring some feasible models drawing from the successful models from different countries where indigenous education has been made successful.

Dear MLE friends, Ever now and then the press picks up on the value of the use of the mother tongue. Express published an article based on observations in Orissa. A copy of the article you find below this entry. This is the link: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=%E2%80%98Local+dialect+can+bridge+the+gap%E2%80%99&artid=ODIgvrQdQKE=&SectionID=mvKkT3vj5ZA=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=nUFeEOBkuKw=&SEO = Regards, Karsten (Thanks to Dr Mahendra Mishra for passing on the article) Karsten van Riezen Education Consultant, SIL Int. SIL, South Asia Group. www.sil.org Disclaimer : This mailing list is an informal way to share MLE related information. The sender neither claims credit or responsibility for the reports and events shared through this mailing list. Subscribing or unsubscribe by writing "[MLE] Subscribe" or "[MLE] Unsubscribe" in the subject-line and send a message t

Dear MLE friends, UNESCO put an other good and helpful MLE related publication on the Web: " Mother tongue matters: local language as a key to effective learning " is now available on-line. This book contains case studies from Papua New Guinea , Mali and Peru . It also contains a section on the Thomas and Collier longitudinal study. If you rather look for recommendations read the "Key Findings" chapter. I copy the conclusion chapter below. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/ulis/cgi-bin/ulis.pl?catno=161121&set=49AC0AB5_1_167&gp=1&mode=e&lin=1 The book is written by Dörthe Bühmann and Barbara Trudell. Regards, Karsten Karsten van Riezen Education Consultant, SIL Int. SIL, South Asia Group. www.sil.org Disclaimer : This mailing list is an informal way to share MLE related information. The sender neither claims credit or responsibility for the reports and events shared through this mailing list. Subscribing or unsubscr

Dear MLE friends, Enabling Education is a publication of Enabling Education Network. Their 12 th issue has over 15 pages with articles on language education issues. It states in the introductions: “In this special section, we will look at language and the impact it has on children’s participation and achievement in education. The use of, and teaching of, language is a complex issue. We can only provide a brief introduction through the articles in this newsletter, but ideas for further reading are provided on page 24.”